A Venetian Affair: A Venetian Passion / In the Venetian's Bed / A Family For Keeps

‘The proposal in the restaurant—this was recent?’

‘Very recent. I should have been on holiday in Tuscany with Edward this week, in a villa with some of his college friends and their partners. He sent my share of the cost back to me the day after the quarrel, so because I’d already arranged the time off my mother asked Fen to sort something out for me in Venice. If you work for the Forlis,’ she added, ‘maybe you know her. Lorenzo Forli is married to her sister Jess.’

‘I have met Fenella, yes,’ said Domenico. ‘What time shall we meet this evening, Laura?’

She looked at him steadily. ‘Are we doing something this evening?’

‘Yes,’ he said firmly. ‘I shall take you to a favourite restaurant of mine.’

Secretly delighted with the idea, Laura gave him a militant look. ‘I’d like that very much, but on one condition.’

‘That I do not kiss you,’ he said, resigned.

‘That I pay for the meal!’

Domenico held up his hands in laughing surrender, and gave her his phone number. ‘Now give me yours.’ And although Laura assured him she could find her way back alone, he insisted on walking back with her to the Locanda Verona. ‘Sleep for a while,’ he advised. ‘I shall call for you at seven-thirty.’ He speared her with a look of glittering blue command as he left her at the familiar bridge. ‘And this time I insist that you wait for me!’

Laura turned suddenly when she was halfway across. ‘Domenico! I forgot my shopping.’

He smiled indulgently. ‘Non importa. I shall bring it this evening. Ciao!’

Laura smiled her thanks and went into the hotel, her spirits high at the prospect of another evening with Domenico—her third in his company if she added the brief encounter at Florian’s. Her eyes narrowed as she went up to her room. Perhaps she was enjoying his company rather more than was sensible in the circumstances. Holiday romances rarely translated well into everyday life. Not that she could call this a romance, exactly, nor would this man ever be part of her life. Once she left Venice she would never see him again.

With this in mind Laura took longer to get ready than usual. While she was eyeing the limited choice in the wardrobe a flash of lightning preceded a clap of thunder, and she ran to close the open doors on the rain hammering down outside. Choice made, she thought irritably. It had to be the black dress again, but at least she could wear it with the white cotton trench coat packed for just this kind of emergency—very Audrey Hepburn, according to Fen.

Laura had been ready and waiting for several minutes before Domenico rang to say he was in the foyer. When she hurried down to meet him he gave her the now familiar double kiss of greeting and brandished a tall black umbrella.

‘You see, Laura? It is not always moonlight in Venice!’

‘And when it rains it certainly rains,’ she agreed.

In the doorway Domenico put up the umbrella, then with his usual ‘Permesso’ slid an arm round her waist. ‘If you wish to stay dry we must walk close together. Which makes me very happy,’ he added in her ear.

Laura chuckled, feeling quite happy about it herself. ‘Do we walk very far?’

‘No. The restaurant is so near I thought you would not mind a walk in the rain.’

Held close against Domenico, she didn’t mind at all. All too soon for Laura they entered an alley so narrow they had to keep very close together indeed before he ushered her into the large, luxurious interior of a restaurant divided into two parts, one very sleek and cosmopolitan, the other more rustic, with a stone fireplace and windows looking out onto a courtyard.

‘I thought you would prefer the room with the true Italian atmosphere,’ said Domenico as a waiter hurried to relieve him of Laura’s raincoat.

‘You were right, I do,’ she assured him, thanking her lucky stars as she took in her surroundings that she could rely on her credit card to pay the bill. Because whatever it cost she was going to pay for their meal.

‘It is not crowded yet as early as this,’ he told her, and looked at her in silence for a moment, something new in his eyes as they moved over her face.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘You glow tonight, Laura.’

‘You look pretty good yourself,’ she said, smiling.

‘Grazie!’ Domenico pushed the menus aside. ‘Allora, tonight the choice is simple if you like fish.’

‘I love it.’

‘Good. This restaurant is famous for its frittura mista dipesce, a platter of many varieties of fish,’ he added. ‘You will like it.’

He was right. But though the meal was delicious, and the surroundings elegant, Laura knew very well that most of her pleasure was down to the man who made it so flatteringly plain he delighted in her company.

‘It is hard to believe,’ he said, when they were drinking coffee, ‘that we have known each other so short a time. I wish that you could stay longer, Laura.’

‘So do I,’ she said regretfully, ‘but in three days I fly back to London, and so far I haven’t been inside the Basilica, visited the Guggenheim, taken a trip to Murano, or any of the things I was told were a must on holiday in Venice.’

‘We shall do that tomorrow.’

Laura’s eyes widened. ‘But what about your job?’

‘I have arranged a little holiday. Until your flight home my time is yours. But now,’ he added, a glint of steel in his eyes, ‘we come to the difficult moment. Laura, I am known here in Venice. I cannot allow a lady to pay for dinner. So I will settle the bill, per favore. If you must,’ he added as she opened her mouth to protest, ‘you can pay me in private later.’

‘Oh, very well,’ she said, resigned. ‘But just make sure you keep the bill for me.’

‘Of course I will,’ he said, looking injured. ‘Why do you not trust me, Laura?’

She smiled in sudden remorse. ‘I do trust you. I just can’t let you spend so much money on me.’

‘But it is customary for a man to do this when he asks a woman to dine with him. I cannot believe that this is different in London.’ Comprehension dawned in his eyes. ‘But of course! I am a fool. You think I will expect—’

‘No! I most certainly do not,’ she retorted, colouring.

‘You say it is the problem with the men who work in your bank,’ he pointed out.

‘You’re different.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘In what way? I am a man.’

‘I know that,’ she said, exasperated. ‘But it never occurred to me that you’d want—expect—’

‘I do not expect to make love to you,’ Domenico said very quietly, leaning nearer. ‘But I would lie if I said I did not want to.’ He signalled to the waiter for the bill, paid it, received Laura’s raincoat and held it for her, then escorted her outside into the narrow alley.

Nothing was said other than a ‘Permesso’ from Domenico as he put his arm round her under the umbrella, but once they left the narrow alley he halted, looking down into her face as the rain teemed down around them.

‘We dined early tonight, Laura.’

She was well aware of that. Yet now there seemed no alternative to a return to the Locanda, where there was no bar, or visitors’ lounge. ‘I need to settle up for dinner,’ she reminded him with sudden inspiration.

‘That would be difficult here in such rain. And I still have your shopping,’ he reminded her. ‘I would ask you back to my apartment to collect it, but after our conversation in the restaurant you will suspect my motives, yes?’

She shook her head, smiling. ‘No, I won’t, Domenico. I’d love to go back to your place.’